Happy Year of the Wood Dragon! I was so grateful to be invited to a festive Bhutanese gathering at a horse ranch overlooking the ocean in Malibu where Abu benefitted from some equine therapy.
Since Abu spent his boyhood hiking the Himalayas in Tibet (horses included), he felt right at home, and the Bhutanese could tell he was recognizing some of their words, too funny! My new Tibetan tattoo was a hit too…
We feasted on a colorful potluck overflowing with yummy Bhutanese food while the men competed in a spirited traditional dart competition (singing included) — it brought back fond memories for me of doing archery in Bhutan aka Land of the Thunder Dragon.
While relaxing on the Malibu ranch (where Claudette Colbert, Elizabeth Taylor, Lawerence Olivier, and even Reagan trained), Abu was riveted watching the horsies eat and get groomed.
One half-American half-Bhutanese young man who’s a sometimes medic in Bhutan told me he’s seen *many* dart and archery injuries while on the job in the isolated Himalayan kingdom!
After the dart competition (the winners took home $500 & bragging rights), we all did a circle dance together at sunset and that was really special. I loved doing that with Chengdu’s Tibetan community when living in Sichuan & to do it overlooking the Pacific in such peace and tranquility with my tiny Himalayan hound was really magical…
Abu’s equine therapy made him feel noticeably calmer and more confident — instant results after we left to head home to the beach.
Not long after our festive ranch adventure, we were invited to another incredible Bhutanese gathering off of Mulholland Drive in a lovely gated community. It was so fun! Bhutanese singing, dancing, food, a movie, the works!
The hosts flew in famous singers from Bhutan, and one of them was wearing a pin with the first letter of my favorite Tibetan mantra (he was so surprised that I knew the Tara mantra lol!).
It was really lovely and healing to speak with members of the Bhutanese and Tibetan communities out here in America’s wild, wild west. I also relished having a chance to practice speaking Tibetan and Dzongkha.
And, as always, the food did not disappoint — we were so grateful to be treated to such a delicious feast (and to dine outside next to the pool for COVID-19 prevention). I have been so touched by and grateful for the warm Bhutanese hospitality I’ve received both in Bhutan and here in Los Angeles — and I’m yearning to return soon to the Himalayas of the Land of the Thunder Dragon!
ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ
